Poison Fruit (51 page)

“He’s right,” Cody said unexpectedly. “If we cache our weapons in the woods behind their lines, we can shift, retrieve them, and flank the enemy.”

Cody’s uncle rounded on him. “You’d take orders from a ghoul over the head of your clan?”

Cody stood his ground, his upper lip curling. “I’ve had a bellyful of your orders, Uncle Elijah,” he said grimly. “But that’s got nothing to do
with it. This isn’t a hunt and it’s a hell of a lot bigger than any police action I’ve seen. It’s a goddamn war, and Ludovic understands tactics.”

“To a point. No one has ever seen such a war.” Stefan deferred to me. “Hel’s liaison, ultimately the choice of who commands here is yours.”

God, that was a responsibility I didn’t want. I looked back and forth between Stefan and Cody. “Can the two of you work together?”

Stefan inclined his head to me. “Yes.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Cody reminded me.

That was true. I owed my life to the two of them working together. “Co-commanders, then.” I turned to Elijah Fairfax and the other werewolves. “And we can’t afford any of that hierarchical bullshit. Not now. I don’t care if Cody’s not the head of the clan. He’s right. You’re not hunting deer on the back forty here. Cody’s a trained cop with good instincts, and I want you to follow his orders. Understand?”

Elijah muttered something into his beard.

I laid my hand on
dauda-dagr
’s hilt. “As Hel’s liaison, I’m asking you a question. Do you understand?”

His eyes flashed green. “Yes.”

I relaxed. “Good.”

“Daise?” Cody cleared his throat. “Speaking of Hel, it would be really helpful if we knew what Little Niflheim’s plans were so we could coordinate with their efforts. Can you find out?”

“I planned to make the same suggestion,” Stefan agreed, glancing toward the basin. “It is difficult to know how we may proceed while the hellhound menaces friend and foe alike.”

It was a good point.

“I need to pick up a few things from home,” I said. “If Hel doesn’t summon me herself, I’ll request an audience.”

It was Cooper who gave me a ride back to my car, which was parked on the unpaved access road that led to the old Cavannaugh property. I held tight to the sissy bar affixed to the back of his dirt bike as we jounced over the loose, sandy terrain. “Go and fetch what you need, m’lady,” he said to me, pulling over and nudging the kickstand down with one heel. “I’ll wait here for you.”

In my apartment, I retrieved the iron casket containing scales of
bark from Yggdrasil II that I’d stashed in the top shelf of my bedroom closet. Mogwai wound around my ankles, purring loudly. I have to admit, being back in my apartment felt familiar and comfortable and safe. There was a part of me that wanted to stay, to lock the door,
hunker down, and let the battle take place without me. Mom was right. This shouldn’t have to be my fight.

Except it was.

I filled Mogwai’s bowl to overflowing with kibble. Since cell phone reception was sketchy out in the dunes, I took the opportunity to call Jen and tell her how much I valued our friendship, and ask her to take care of my cat if anything happened to me.

I called Chief Bryant and asked him to tell people to stay inside and off the street tomorrow, because I didn’t know what might happen if or when the Wild Hunt was unleashed.

And I called my mom and told her that I loved her.

After that, I grabbed an extra sweater, stripped one of the pillowcases from my bed, and drove back to meet Cooper.

Fifty-one

C
ooper eyed me. “What’s the pillowcase for?”

“Truce flag,” I said briefly.

He raised his fair brows at me. “You think to bargain with the goddess Persephone herself, then?”

I shook my head. “I think to
beg
, Cooper. It’s the only move I’ve got left.”

His pupils dilated. “Sure, and you know that’s not true. If
I
had your leverage, I’d bargain.”

“How?” I challenged him. “And for what?”

“How?” Cooper gave a bleak laugh. “Don’t ask me, m’lady. I thought to drive a bargain on the gallows, but the divvil himself wouldn’t have it. But for what?” His ancient eyes gleamed in his narrow seventeen-year-old’s face. “Me, I’d just like a chance to grow to a man’s full stature.”

“I know,” I murmured.

Cooper gunned the dirt bike. “Hold tight.”

By the time we returned to the campsite, it was late afternoon on what was technically the last day of winter. I was hoping that some of Persephone’s forces might have moved into place in advance of her
arrival, which would have given us the opportunity for some fey-style
sabotage and vampiric terrorism in the middle of the night, but our scouts were reporting everything was quiet.

The campsite looked great, though. When I’d left, it had been nothing but a few tents pitched below the denser cover of a stand of white pines, with a path leading to the lookout point. In the hour I’d been gone, Mrs. Browne had transformed the campsite into something from the set of a Peter Jackson movie, the aboveground equivalent of a hobbit hole. Churned sand and pine mast had been swept smooth, obliging branches woven into snug little shelters. A teakettle hung from a spit above a lively campfire, whistling a merry tune.

“Here ye go, dearie.” Mrs. Browne handed me a steaming mug of tea. “It’ll warm your bones.”

She was right. It tasted of ginger and cinnamon, and it spread a pleasant warmth all through me. “Than—” I caught myself before thanking her. Brownies had very specific rules governing their magic. You can’t ask them for assistance, and it’s dangerous even to thank them for it. Compliments were okay, though. I smiled at her. “It’s delicious, Mrs. B.”

If Mrs. Browne had been human, I would have said she flushed with pleasure. “Oh, it’s nothing, nothing at all,” she said modestly before bustling on to another chore.

Even if we did have a much nicer place to wait than anticipated, the waiting made me antsy.

I talked to my co-commanders, Stefan and Cody, about my plan to approach Persephone under a flag of truce and beg her to call off the war.

Unsurprisingly, neither of them approved.

I listened patiently to their arguments, the gist of which was that it was a pointless risk, dangerous and unlikely to succeed.

“You might be right,” I said calmly. “In fact, you probably
are
right. But I’m doing it anyway.”

Stefan’s jaw was rigid with tension. “I’m tempted to forbid you,” he said in an ominous voice. Beside him, Cody uttered a low growl of agreement.

Great, the two of them had found common cause. “I have to try,” I said. “What kind of liaison would I be if I didn’t at least
try
?”

Cody and Stefan exchanged a glance. “Then I will accompany you,” Stefan said in a quieter tone.

“No.” Cody shook his head. “I’ll go.”

I raised my voice. “We can’t spare either of you! Hell, we can’t spare anyone. I’ll go alone.”

They didn’t like it, but in the end they agreed.

I didn’t have to request an audience with Hel that evening. The sun had barely sunk behind the dunes in the west when Mikill’s dune buggy roared out of Yggdrasil II’s entrance and charged up the side of the basin, skidding a little in the loose sand as it crested the rise.

“Daisy Johanssen.” The frost giant’s voice was somber. “I am bid to summon you to an audience with Hel.”

I got in the buggy. “Let’s go.”

It was unnerving to think that this might be my last visit to Little Niflheim; the last time I sent Garm bounding into the darkness after a loaf of bread; the last time Mikill warned me to keep my limbs inside the vehicle during the descent; the last time we spiraled down into the frigid cold, Mikill’s dripping beard crackling with frost as it stiffened.

When we reached the bottom, I found that the
duegar
were nowhere in sight, but the streets—well, the one, anyway—of Little Niflheim were lined with spectral figures—ghosts, but more misty and insubstantial than those I’d encountered aboveground, many of them clad in attire that hadn’t been in style for, oh, a couple thousand years.

None spoke, but all watched our passage.

“Who are they?” I asked Mikill in a hushed whisper. “What are they doing here? And where are all the dwarves?”

“The
duegar
prepare for battle. These are the dead of Niflheim.” Mikill pulled up before the abandoned sawmill and cut the engine. “Tomorrow may be the end for all of us, Daisy Johanssen. The dead are here to bear witness.”

I swallowed. “Oh.”

As always, Hel sat upright on her throne. Both her eyes were open and blazing, but this time there were no thunderclouds gathering
around her, no rumblings from the deep, no scary creaking overhead.
There was only a waiting silence fraught with a sense of foreboding that made the icy air feel thick and heavy in my lungs.

I went to one knee before her throne and bowed my head. “My lady.”

“Rise, and tell me what passes aboveground, my young liaison,” Hel bade me. I obeyed and she listened to my report, nodding with approval from time to time, especially at the mention of the Wild Hunt. “Yes, the immortal hunters who strike terror into the hearts of men are known to us from days of old. You have done well.”

I cleared my throat. “My lady, may I ask what Little Niflheim plans in terms of battle?”

The left side of her face formed a grimmer rictus than usual. “Where the roots of Yggdrasil will bear it, the
duegar
lay traps beneath the shifting sands. The hellhound Garm will defend the world tree with his last breath.” Turning her head from side to side, Hel acknowledged the three frost giants flanking her throne, and Mikill standing nearby, with a brief dip of her head.

“If Garm should fail, the four of us shall take his place,” Mikill said in his quietest rumble.

“So . . . just to be clear, as far as Garm’s concerned, there’s no, um, cease-fire on the whole friends-versus-foes front?” I asked. “You can’t teach him to, say, recognize your allies?”

A slight furrow etched the fair right half of Hel’s brow. “The hellhound Garm will attack anyone who approaches the world tree, yes. Such is his immortal nature and purpose, which cannot be altered. Thus has it ever been, and thus shall it ever be. Is that what your inquiry was intended to discern?”

Crap. I suppose some supernatural Cesar Millan training techniques were too much to hope for. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Hel closed her ember eye and gazed at me with the lambent one. “The world tree’s roots are deep and vast. I shall remain here, pouring all the strength that is in me into them. For so long as this second Yggdrasil stands and the Norns may nourish its roots from the sacred spring, Niflheim endures.
I
endure.”

I nodded. “So we defend Yggdrasil at all costs.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “My lady, you should know that I plan to approach the, um, Greek Persephone under a flag of truce tomorrow, and beg her one last time to call this off.”

Oops.

Hel’s left eye opened, glaring with hellfire and fury. “You mean to
beg
?” Yep, there were those trembling rafters. “
Beg
? In
my
name?”

My knees were knocking, but I held my chin high, an answering anger stirring in me. “Yes, my lady. I do. But not in your name. You named me your liaison, and as such, I represent not just you but the entire community of your demesne, eldritch and mundane alike.” I gestured overhead. “You’re talking about my friends, my family. If we fail on the morrow—” God, again with the archaic language. “If we
lose
tomorrow,” I said doggedly, “it doesn’t just mean the demise of Little Niflheim. It means the destruction of my entire community. It means the loss of one of the few remaining places in the world where magic exists with space to roam free and wild, not dying a slow death in crowded cities. So, yes, I’m willing to beg on behalf of my people.
All
my people.” I took another breath and exhaled, turning my hands palm outward. “What else do I have to offer other than my pride?”

Hel kept glaring.

Mikill approached the throne and murmured into Hel’s ear. She closed her eyes and listened.

Mikill stepped back.

“Forgive me.” Hel opened her lustrous right eye. “Betimes it takes the tender heart of a mortal to remind us of our duties.” She bent her gaze on me. “I cannot bow my head to the Greek Persephone and beg for mercy. That is not the way of gods and goddesses. But I give you my leave to do so on behalf of your community.”

I stifled a sigh of relief. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Is there aught else?” Hel inquired.

I shook my head. “No, my lady.”

The Norse goddess of the dead beckoned. “Then kneel before my throne one last time, Daisy Johanssen, and receive my blessing.” As I
knelt before the throne, Hel rose and laid both hands upon my head:
the fair white hand and the withered black claw. She spoke words that tolled through the depths of Little Niflheim in a language I didn’t recognize, and I felt the power of her blessing settle into my bones, as deep and strong as the roots of the world tree, and as cold and crystalline as the waters of the sacred spring that nourished them.

With that, I was dismissed.

Mikill drove me back through the transparent ranks of the watching dead. Thinking about what had transpired, I asked him to slow down and stop for a moment as we approached the Norns, engaged in the endless chore of drawing buckets from the spring and watering Yggdrasil II’s roots. They paused in their labor, but none of them spoke.

“Um, hi,” I said awkwardly to the youngest Norn, the one who’d laid the soothsaying on me in the first place. “I just wondered . . . that thing Hel just said about the tender heart of a mortal . . . that wasn’t what you meant when you told me to trust my heart, was it?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the Norn who looked like a maiden gave her head an infinitesimal shake. The Norn who looked to be about my mom’s age laid a hand over her heart, and the oldest Norn, the Norn who looked like a kindly grandma, pressed one silver-taloned finger to her lips.